Something Cuterus in Your Uterus
by RunBabyRun8312
Summary: Leslie is pregnant. She doesn't know. Everyone else in the Parks department does. The gang has to hold onto this huge piece of information and discovers that nothing is harder than keeping a secret from Leslie Knope, all while taking care of the baby Leslie isn't aware she is carrying.
1. Chapter 1

"Hey, Ron, can I talk to you for a minute?" Ann asked, closing the door behind her before getting an answer.

"No."

"Okay, so I have this friend and I -"

"No."

Ann sighed exasperatedly. "Ron, this is important."

Ron folded his hands on his desk and knew he was going to have to give in. He had found that happening a lot since he had suddenly become a father to three kids.

"You have sixty seconds."

"Sixty seconds? Are you serious? This is -"

"Fifty-four seconds."

"I have this friend and I know something very important that they don't."

"And?" replied Ron, boredom evident in his voice.

"And it's-it's life-changing!" Ann exclaimed and threw her hands in the air. "Do I tell her to do I wait for her to find out or do I send her an anonymous tip under a fake name or… What do I do?"

Great. Now he had a crazy woman in his office. Ann looked stressed beyond belief and Ron just wanted her to leave so he could go back to not working.

"You have twenty-one seconds left. You can either tell me or leave and stop wasting my time."

Ann took a deep breath and then answered quickly, "Leslie is pregnant and she doesn't know."


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks for all the support on the first chapter, guys! I hope you like the story.**

It was silent for moment. Ron's gaze seemed fixated at the wall, so Ann sat down on the bench across from his desk, assuming that her statement had saved her from being sent out. April opened the door to come in and say something, but Ron pushed his button and it shut in her face. Something like that usually would have been amusing to Ann, but she was so consumed with anxiety she barely registered it happening.

"I'm sorry," Ron finally spoke, "Do you want to run that by me again?"

"Well, you know how Leslie wanted to sign her and Ben up for that couples tennis thing?"

Of course he remembered. All Knope had talked about for days was getting matching racquets and coordinating outfits. She had even tried to get Diane on board, but Ron said that he would eat fruit salad before playing an "unnecessary sport" with other people.

"She needed to fill out medical paperwork and she was just going to guess on everything," Ann continued, "So I practically forced her to come and get a physical. She only agreed because I promised I'd be working when she came."

Ron was just about at his wit's end. If this woman did not get to the point of her story soon, he might just kill her.

"Anyway, she comes in and gets a surprisingly clean bill of health given how poor her diet is. But then her doctor goes over her chart with me and reveals that she's pregnant. It's policy that he's supposed to tell her, but I begged him not to and he said that he wouldn't as long as I did it, but I-I went back into the room she was in and I just couldn't. I mean, finding out she's pregnant should be something special and I just -"

She dropped her head into her hands and groaned. It felt good to tell _someone_, but it didn't ease the emotions eating away at her. Ron's ever-constant disapproving face didn't help, either.

"And when was this?" Ron asked.

"Two days ago. I made up some minor medical thing that would prevent her from playing tennis and she went along with it. And yesterday at lunch I saw her drinking a soda and I smacked it out of her hand. She thinks I'm crazy."

Ron didn't understand what was so ceremonious about urinating onto a stick and waiting for it to change color, but he knew Ann was right about it needing to be important for Leslie. She had to find out on her own. So long as Ann could keep her mouth shut, they could pull this off.

"Don't tell Leslie -"

"Don't tell Leslie what?" Andy cut Ron of, flinging the door open before it could be shut.

"Nothing! No baby! Waffles!" Ann spouted nervously.

She threw her hands over her mouth to avoid any further word vomit.

"Baby waffles?" Andy asked incredulously, "_Leslie's pregnant?_"

Every head in the parks department offices turned. Ann wanted to cry. She had needed to explain the end of the Usual Suspects to Andy for over an hour before he vaguely understood it. How had he managed to put _this _together from random, poorly chosen words?

_Shit. _


	3. Chapter 3

A few minutes later, everyone was grouped around together in the middle of the office. Jerry and Andy both had big dopey grins from the news. Ann had shut all the doors and joined Ron, who was looming over everyone with his hands stuffed in his pockets.

"Here's the thing," Ron began, "None of us can talk about it because Leslie doesn't know."

"How do _you _know there's a baby in her tummy, but _she _doesn't?" asked Tom.

Ann went on to first remind Tom that the fetus is _not _located in the stomach and then once again tell her story. They were all quiet for a moment as it dawned on them that they had to keep a secret from _Leslie Knope_. It was impossible for her to not notice someone was hiding something from her.

"God, Ann, you can't even do your job," April deadpanned, breaking the silence.

Ann rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Listen, just don't tell her. Or Ben. You can try to make subtle hints at it and see if she catches on. We want her to find out on her own. Just think of this as extra time to plan for gifts."

"Ooh, gifts for what?" Leslie's voice suddenly chimed in, "Why is this door closed?"

While she propped the door to the hall open again, Ann made a shooing motion. The group dispersed and returned to work. Well, they pretended to be working while surreptitiously looking Leslie over.

"So, how's everybody doing?" the perky blonde asked.

Her brow furrowed a little when none of her coworkers responded.

Finally, Andy said, "Hey, Leslie, are you getting fat?"

"What?" Leslie responded in a significantly quieter tone than usual.

April smacked her husband roughly on the arm and Ann hurried over to console her confused and hurt best friend.

"He means PHAT," Donna quickly said to save the day, "With a 'ph.'"

"Yeah, it means 'Pretty Hot and Tempting.'" Tom added, even though he and Donna both knew that no one had used that term in years.

Leslie's expression changed instantaneously and she was smiling once again. "Well, Andy, I'm not sure how to answer that, but thank you. I suppose. Now, who's up for untangling swing set chains?"

Everyone groaned. After Leslie left with a begrudging Tom, the others all rounded on Andy. He cowered sheepishly toward April, but she was glaring at him just as much.

"What the _hell _was that?" Donna demanded.

"Real subtle, Andy," said Jerry.

_"Don't disrespect my husband, Jerry!" _April yelled.


	4. Chapter 4

It had been a week. _A week._ The entire department was going insane. Every time Leslie walked in, they silently prayed that she had a big announcement for them. Well, she had had one, but it had been regarding new playground canopies, not the "tiny nerd baby" as Tom liked to call it.

Ann swore that her hair was beginning to fall out. A concerned Chris began going on about different vitamins and conditioners that would help until Ann finally snapped and filled him in on the information, too. He happy-cried on her for nearly an hour.

As hard as Ron and Ann tried to keep everyone composed, it got out of hand very quickly. Andy had put Bert Macklin on duty to protect Leslie and been following her around the entire week, ducking out of her line of vision when she turned and ignoring any other work he had. Jerry giggled every time he saw her until either someone told him to shut up or he peed himself a little. Chris insisted on making Leslie a healthy lunch every day that she was too polite to turn down. And after he watched her eat all of it with her nose wrinkled in disgust at all the vegetables, he would try to teach her breathing exercises until she came up with an excuse to get him out of her office.

"My god," Tom complained to Ann one day, "She's never gonna find out. She's gonna be a TLC special!"

* * *

The phone in Ron's office began ringing.

"What?" he answered gruffly.

"Hey, Ron, it's Ben. I'm calling in for Leslie. She's a little sick and –"

"I'm fine! I'll be there in five minutes!" Leslie shouted in the background.

Ben put his hand over the receiver, but Ron could still hear him say, "Les, you threw up twice. Go back to bed."

Ben's schedule at Sweetum's was really flexible. He could pretty much come and go as he pleased, so he said he'd stay home with Leslie for a few more hours. Ron promised that if he caught Knope trying to come to work that afternoon, he would personally drag her back home.

So. Morning sickness. They were finally getting there. Ron couldn't fight the little twitch of his mustache that passed as a grin. He was happy for Leslie.

* * *

"Hey, how are you feeling?" Ann asked, entering her friend's office.

"Fantastic," Leslie beamed, "Ben was overreacting, really. I was fine by ten o'clock."

"Wow. So you were only sick in the morning? Isn't that just crazy?"

"Yeah, must've been a little bug or something. I don't want to call out your boyfriend or anything, but it was probably all those weird, foreign green crap he's been force feeding me."

Ann sighed. She could just strangle Leslie. _(Oh, god, had she seriously envisioned wrapping her hands around her pregnant best friend's neck? She was a monster.)_ Ann didn't know how she could be more obvious without actually using the phrase "morning sickness."

"Well…how was this morning?" she asked.

"Fine," Leslie replied, focusing on her computer screen.

They made plans to meet for coffee on a break. Ann offered to buy because then she could slip Leslie a decaf. After saying goodbyes, Leslie released a deep breath.

She didn't like keeping secrets from her best friend, but couldn't risk the possibility of Ann telling Ben that Leslie had, in fact, been sick again that morning, but had turned on the shower so he wouldn't hear.


	5. Chapter 5

"What if one of us whispers in her ear while she's sleeping so she thinks it's a dream?" suggested Tom.

"No, we hire a gypsy to foresee her future and tell her that Ben made a demon baby which is slowly poisoning her body and soul," April said.

Andy stood up from the courtyard table proudly. "As awesome as that sounds, babe, I think I have the greatest idea of all."

He reached his hand into his pocket and slowly pulled something out. It was tan and oddly shaped. April, Donna, and Tom simply blinked at it. Andy grinned widely and pointed at it.

"It's a fortune cookie!" he exclaimed, "I broke it, wrote a new fortune, put it in, and glued the pieces back together."

"How long did that take you?" Donna asked.

"Only, like, seventeen hours."

Tom nodded in approval and fist-bumped Andy. The women glanced at each other, realizing they were the only ones who saw the issue with not only feeding glue to a person, but feeding glue to a _pregnant _person.

"Hey, gang!" Leslie greeted, walking to their table.

They replied with an awkward, "Hey…."

"Fortune cookie!" she gasped, "Can I have that? Chris keeps forcing me to eat this awful lunches and I would die for a coo-"

April snatched the cookie and shoved it into Andy's mouth. A few crunches and it was gone. Leslie marched off, muttering something about Jerry's Chips Ahoy stash. When she was gone, Andy grabbed Tom's iced tea and guzzled it. He gagged and wiped his tongue with a napkin.

"I didn't use the glue that tastes good," he groaned.

He jumped around, trying in vain to get the awful taste out of his mouth. A slip of paper fluttered out of his pocket. The fortune. He hadn't even remembered the put the fortune inside. Donna grabbed it off the ground.

In sloppy Sharpie, it read: your pregnent

* * *

"Hey, Ben!"

Ben turned, standing just beside the door to Leslie's office. Andy flew by and hurled something at him. Ben's arms flailed defensively. Why did people always assume he was ready to catch things? There was a _thud _by his feet. A paper flour sack lay on the floor, some of the contents spilling onto Ben's shoes.

"What the-," he started, "Andy!"

At the end of the hall, a sunglasses-wearing Andy (Ben refused to call him Bert Macklin) shook his head disappointedly. He pulled a small notepad and a pen from his shirt pocket and scratched an X onto a page.

"Failed your first test, Mr. Wyatt."

"What? What test?"

Andy walked away without another word. Ben stood in the flour mess a moment more, completely and utterly confused, yet not all that shocked. Somehow things like that had become normal. After shaking off whatever _that _was and brushing the powder off his shoes, he opened the door to his wife's office.

"Hey!" Leslie beamed as she rose to kiss him.

"You ready?"

Leslie nodded and shut down her computer. She grabbed her coat and purse, heading towards the door Ben held open for her. One of the schools in a nearby town that had benefited from Ben and Andy's music charity from the Sweetums Foundation had invited Ben to a concert. He asked Leslie if she wanted to go and she happily accepted, glad to get away from her fellow city council members for an afternoon and take a small road trip with her husband.

"What happened here?" Leslie asked, pointing at the ruptured flour sack.

Ben sighed. "I honestly have no idea."

"Leslie Knope!" Chris called down the hall, jogging to catch up to her.

Leslie tried to nudge Ben to go, but he wasn't going to ignore his friend. Chris stopped beside them, glanced at the powdery mess on the floor, then moved on to what he had chased after Leslie for.

"I packed your lunch to-go. And one for Ben. You need to eat healthier, too."

Leslie's face scrunched up in disgust and defeat, so Ben took the lunch sacks and thanked Chris. Once the couple made it safely outside, Leslie asked if they were actually going to have to eat them.

"Oh, god, no," Ben said and tossed them into a nearby trashcan where they would make a Pawnee raccoon very happy.

Taking little road trips was always a special treat for them, neither having to voice their thoughts about how a simple road trip years before had led to so much (more than they even knew at the moment). Ben drummed his fingers against the steering wheel in time with the song on the radio and glanced at Leslie. She was kicking her shoes off of her feet, which had been killing her lately for some reason she could not decipher. The sunlight streaming through the window lit up her hair. She looked up from her discarded shoes and met his eyes with a smile.

* * *

Leslie had run off to the restroom, so Ben waited at the top of the gymnasium bleachers for her, looking at all the middle schoolers holding their shiny instruments. His sister had played the clarinet in school and he remembered how once when he thought he was supposed to go pick her up from practice the other kids dared him to try to fit into a tuba locker. He did and they locked him in for nearly an hour. _Good times._

"Adorable, aren't they?" a woman asked him, toting a small child behind her.

"Yeah."

"My son is playing the trumpet. What about yours?"

"Uh, I actually don't have any kids."

The woman looked at him in disgust and dragged her toddler away before Ben could explain that he was not a pedophile. Leslie came back a moment later and they found seats. The concert started with a classical piece, moved to a raucous marching tune that Ben thought for sure would make the little girl playing the cymbals go deaf, and ended with _Hedwig's Theme_ from Harry Potter. Semi-stifled sniffles came from Ben's left.

"Les?" he whispered.

She was blubbering. "It's just so beautiful," she answered.

Ben put an arm around her, both assuming the tears were caused by her deep love of a certain fictional world.


End file.
